It’s May, the sun is out, and it seems likely that something, somewhere, is germinating. Clearly, the time has come for Album of the Summer deliberations to begin. Naturally, this will not be the only album of the summer. But, still, a decision must be reached. When you’re in your twilight years, what album (delivered via networked cochlear implant) do you want to use to dredge up lost memories of summer ‘08 from beneath a river of amyloid plaque?

As you can see, it’s a weighty decision. It needs to be something that’s widely acceptable, that’s fun and sunny, and that still sounds good when drowned out by a blender.

The album I’ve been hearing people talk about most is the new Portishead. Pitchfork called it “darker and bleaker”, “abrasive” and “jittery”. The first paragraph notwithstanding, this is not exactly what I’m looking for in a soundtrack for sunburning myself.

I have considered other candidates and found them wanting:

   Cut Copy — Too much Hot Chip disco bullshit.

   Dodos — I’m sorry, but I can no longer take seriously any acoustic guitar duos that don’t have their own HBO series.

   The Wombats — I love these guys, but as their releases inched closer to the US they’ve gotten more and more overproduced. Their latest LP incarnation is essentially unlistenable.

   the new Hold Steady — Grudgingly disqualified due to non-existence.

I do, however, have a nomination to make: Headlights, an Illinois band that released Some Racing, Some Stopping at the beginning of March (Kyle was on top of it then). The album’s first two tracks are the real standouts: Get Your Head Around It is a reverbed song about regret that slowly builds to an aching, harmony-filled crescendo. You may recall how I feel about such things.

More universally, Cherry Tulips is likely to be among the prettiest things you hear this spring, suffering only from some unfortunately lame rhymes in the chorus. It’s still awfully sweet, though.

The rest of the album is worthwhile, too. The obvious comparison is to Rilo Kiley circa Execution of All Things. But it’s better than that: the band uses dynamics less clumsily, the sequencing on the album is actually well thought-out, and they have the good sense to keep every song under four minutes.

Pitchfork gave it a pretty good review, but one which amounted to saying, “this is a good pop record, but it seems like we’ve had one of those before”. That’s the business they’re in, and it’s a correct evaluation. But for summertime music purposes, it’s a bit beside the point.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 1st, 2008 at 5:29 pm and is filed under music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.